At the Pacific Garden Mission's sprawling greenhouse complex, you can sample a tiny yellow tomato, fresh off the vine and so sweet it almost hurts to bite into it.
Raspberries, lemon balm, chard, sunflowers, cantaloupe, fennel and zinnias flourish beside chain-link fences and vacant lots.
Pink worms turn truckloads of kitchen waste into fertile soil.
But none of these wonders gets more reaction than a slightly sheepish young man who shows up unexpectedly on a rainy Wednesday morning.
Greenhouse supervisor Nance Klehm lets out a piercing shriek, runs to the young man's side and wraps her arms around him. Klehm's assistant Jose Roman, a shelter resident, leaps up and joins the impromptu celebration.
No matter that the young man dropped out of the mission's year-long residential program after eight months, a setback that that devastated Klehm and Roman. No matter that Klehm has been out on the streets looking for him in her spare time. No matter that he is resurfacing with no warning and little in the way of compelling explanations.
"We love this guy. This guy was with us for almost eight months!" Klehm proclaims.
"Yeah, with us," Roman says.
"Here, have some tomatoes," Klehm offers.
"He's like my little kid!" says Roman, getting a little misty-eyed. "I got two of 'em (that age)."
Some greenhouses grow vegetables. Some grow flowers. What grows at the two gleaming 2,500-square-foot greenhouses rising from a gray industrial district at South Canal Street and 14th Place is a bit more complex.
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Harvesting Hope
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By Nara Schoenberg
Chicago Tribune - IL, Sept 27, 2009
Straight to the Source
